Let The Flames Begin
by churry
Summary: The new girl Wendy is supposed to be pretty smart, so why the hell does she feel sorry for Cartman? Stan and Kyle have a lot of work on their hands...[R&R, it makes me happy! :D]
1. First Impressions

South Park High School seemed to gleam in the late summer sun, and the leaves on the trees blew gently, caressed by a slight breeze. It was an absolutely beautiful day, perfect for playing a game of football or going on a picnic, but that didn't matter, because it was the first day of school. The students didn't know it, but all their warm and fuzzy summer memories had already begun to fade from their minds and their blood pressure way slowly creeping way up. For some, it was the first day of many more high school years to come, but for others, like Stan and Kyle, it was their last year ever. And that was fucking _great_.

Kyle sat in his homeroom class, feeling bored already. He had gone through all the possible scenarios he could think of for the year ahead, and none of them were particularly appealing. He wanted to fast forward to his graduation in June, but for now he was stuck with the same old kids in the same old classroom he had been with for three years. He needed change, but in what form he didn't know.

"Kyle," a voice came from seemingly far away, and Kyle blinked lazily. Everything felt as if it were going in slow motion and…

"Kyle, dude, wake up!" Stan Marsh, his best friend laughed, poking him in the shoulder.

Kyle stretched out his arms on the desk and yawned. "Shit, did I fall asleep already?" he asked incredulously. The year was going to go by a lot more slowly than he had first thought.

"Mmhmm. But it doesn't really matter, 'cause Mr. Leroy isn't here yet."

"He's not? But he's like, the biggest punctuation nazi ever!"

"Maybe we have a new homeroom teacher. That would be cool."

"I guess. Especially if it was a girl."

"Yeah, a _hot_ girl. Kenny would've—" Stan's voiced trailed off, and the two of them fell into a silence, each retreating into their own thoughts.

Finally Stan spoke up. "I don't really wanna talk about him right now," Stan muttered, unconsciously squeezing an eraser in his left hand. His azure eyes were troubled when he looked up to meet Kyle's gaze, and Kyle knew all too well what was going on in his mind. That thing last year with Kenny had been totally—

"Sorry I'm late, students," Came a breathless voice, and Stan didn't bother looking up. He had seen Mr. Leroy's shiny red face and balding head often enough, thanks. But Kyle suddenly elbowed him in the ribs.

"Dude, look up!" he hissed, and Stan raised his head to see what Kyle was so excited about.

There was a girl standing there, who appeared just a little too skinny. She had long charcoal colored hair, and wide hazel eyes framed with thick eyelashes. Her mouth was small and compact, yet full. So, she was a pretty girl, nothing to get your knickers in a twist over. Sure, there weren't that many in their high school, but when you already were in love, like Stan was, other girls didn't matter. Well, not that much at least.

"She's pretty hot," Stan whispered back, but Kyle didn't appear to hear him. He was staring at the girl with a mesmerized look on his face. Stan sighed; did he have to do everything?

"Keep your cool," Stan said in a low voice, and Kyle snapped out of his trance and replaced the lovesick look on his face with one of total indifference. Much better.

"Okay, we have a new student," Mr. Leroy announced, as if everyone hadn't already noticed. "Wendy, I think your name was. Go ahead and tell us a little about yourself."

The girl stepped forward confidently, and you could practically hear all the eyes moving in their sockets to watch her.

"Hi, everyone. I'm Wendy Testaburger and I moved here from…" her voice trailed off and a strange expression came into her eyes, before she hastily continued, "I moved here from Denver. I like reading and I have a cat. I guess that's it."

"Good," Mr. Leroy stated, shooting Wendy a pleased glance. "Does anyone have any questions for your new peer?"

Craig's hand shot up.

"Do you have any single sisters?" Craig leaned back in his seat with a satisfied smirk on his lips while everyone laughed.

Wendy didn't look rattled at all. "No, I'm an only child. Do _you_ have any single brothers?"

Craig's eyebrows raised in appreciation as everyone laughed at him this time. The new chick had officially become "cool" in the eyes of everyone in their homeroom.

Kyle watched her, his face stoic. But inside he was leaping for joy. Wendy was smart; finally, someone smart who didn't have any unfortunate orthodontic issues was at their school. He would be able to talk to Stan about girlfriend related stuff now!

Someone was getting a little ahead of themselves.

"Alright, settle down, class." Mr. Leroy shouted above the din, and shooed the cluster of girls who had gathered around Wendy to fawn over her shoes back to their desks. "Wendy, you can sit next to Kyle."

"I don't mean to be rude, but who's Kyle?"

Mr. Leroy blushed, which Kyle thought was highly inappropriate for a male teacher to do. That sick pervert.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that you're new. Kyle's the one with that mass of curly fire engine red hair," Mr. Leroy pointed out, and Kyle resisted the urge to get into a fistfight with him. Did he have to make some wisecrack about his hair again?

"Oh. Okay," Wendy replied, as she gracefully walked over to where Kyle was sitting and took a seat next to him.

Stan nudged him slyly in the side, and Kyle resisted his urge to grin like a maniac. She was sitting next to him!

"Hey," She whispered. "Can I see your schedule?"

"Sure," Kyle replied, handing the slip of paper with his classes and teachers on it over to her.

"Cool, you're in my English class," She told him after she had finished reading it over.

"Really? So am I," Came Stan's voice, and Kyle turned to look at him. He had almost forgotten about his best friend during his exchange with Wendy.

"Oh yeah. Wendy, this is Stan," Kyle said. He wondered how Wendy would react. Most girls went into some kind of blabbing fit when they saw how handsome Stan was, but Wendy wasn't like most girls.

"Nice to meet you. Do you play football?" she asked, noticing the football shaped necklace Stan wore. Everyone always kidded him about how gay it was, but Stan wore it because his girlfriend Heidi had given it to him. And everyone knew how lovey dovey those two were.

"Yeah. Actually, I'm captain of the football team." Stan said modestly, his shaggy dark hair falling in his eyes.

"You must be good, then. Do you play too, Kyle?"

"No. I prefer the intellectual side of life."

Stan muffled his laughter by pretending to cough, and Wendy luckily didn't seem to notice.

"So do I! We have so much in common!" She exclaimed, her hazel eyes sparkling merrily.

Stan watched Kyle redden, and grinned inwardly. Kyle was so naïve; it was fun to watch him interacting with a girl he probably thought was way out of his league. Stan decided to help him along, as he was probably too shy to do anything on his own.

"So, Wendy, do you wanna sit with us at lunch or something?" Stan asked boldly, and Wendy looked surprised.

"That's so awesome of you guys. I'd love to!" She replied, and Kyle's heart soared.

'I am on cloud fucking nine. Thank you sweet baby Jesus!' Kyle thought, as the bell to signal their first class of the school year rang and everyone shuffled off.

Kyle spaced out during all his classes, but it didn't matter as the teachers just stated their class rules and other boring shit like that. He forced himself to walk slowly to the Cafeteria when the lunch bell rang, as he didn't want to seem desperate, and was glad to see that Stan was already there with Wendy. He had to be casual.

"Hey Kyle," The two of them chorused in unison, and Kyle's mood soured a little. When had they become such BFF's?

"Hey," he replied, settling down next to Stan so as not to arouse suspicion. He then noticed that Wendy only had an apple and a bottle of water, and decided to be gallant and offer to buy her lunch. "Wendy, is that all you're eating? You'll be hungry if—"

"No, I'm fine," she interjected. "I ate a big breakfast." She must have noticed the "ohmyfuckinggodshehatesmenow" look on Kyle's face, as she quickly pointed to someone sitting on the other end of the Cafeteria.

"Who's that?"

Both Stan and Kyle turned to look around, and what they saw caused both of them to recoil as if they had been bitchslapped.

What Wendy was referring to was a slightly overweight boy with dark brown hair who was sitting at a table by himself, and all the tables around him were empty as well. Stan and Kyle glanced at each other, not knowing how they should go about this.

"Uh, that's Eric Cartman," Kyle finally spoke up, knowing how sensitive Stan was about this topic.

Wendy raised her eyebrows. "You say his name like he's famous."

"Well, around here he kinda is."

"Why is he sitting by himself?"

"Uh…"

Stan chose that moment to speak, and when he did his voice was laced with barely contained anger. "Seriously, Wendy, he doesn't need your pity. He's a monster."

"That seems a little extreme. At my old school I was—anyways, that doesn't matter now. He can't be that bad," Wendy said, looking at Cartman with an expression of empathy on her face.

"We have to tell her," Kyle said to Stan, while Wendy looked on in confusion.

"Tell me what?"

"Wendy," Stan said slowly, "Cartman killed Kenny."

"He _what_?!"

To be continued…

A/N: Finally, it's complete! I am back, with all my horrendous (and horrendously long) SP fanfictions! Please leave a review; that would be oh so kind of you. I would like to know what you think. Make predictions, rant about how OOC some people are, go for it! This was originally supposed to be in first person (Wendy) but I scrapped that idea. Anyways, stay tuned and I'll love you always! ;


	2. Misunderstood

The threesome sat in silence after Wendy's display of shock. They were all staring at one another, which would have been funny if not for the circumstances.

"You guys are joking, right?" Wendy piped up feebly, her eyes appearing even larger than usual with newfound concern.

"No. It wouldn't be a very funny joke," Stan muttered, poking a piece of carrot around on his plate.

"But if he killed someone, shouldn't he be in ja—" Wendy's rising voice was muted by Kyle placing a hand over her mouth.

"Shh," he hissed, shooting a glance to the where the topic of their conversation was sitting. "He might hear you."

Wendy pulled away from him, her brown-green eyes flashing. "Don't touch me," she snapped, an expression of regret appearing on her face when she saw the stunned look Kyle wore.

"I…I'm sorry, Kyle, it's just—"

"No, it's okay. I mean, I just met you, I shouldn't have—"

"This is my fault."

"No, it's _my_ fault."

Watching them arguing over whose right it was to apologize; Stan was able to smile despite the seriousness of the situation.

"It's my fault, okay? " Stan chuckled, which caused them to stop bickering with each other.

"Okay," Kyle agreed, smiling at Stan when Wendy looked down to take a bite out of her apple.

"So," Wendy said, looking back up, her voice softer than it had been earlier. "Why isn't Eric in jail?"

Stan rubbed his forehead, grimacing. "That asshole should be, but the police never found proof that he did it."

"Our police force is really useless," Kyle added. "They never even found Kenny's body."

"But you guys, maybe that means that Kenny wasn't killed." Wendy said, a puzzled frown on her delicate face.

"Well, three months is a pretty long time to be on vacation in Hawaii," Stan retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Stan," Kyle said warningly. Stan tended to get a little bitchy whenever anyone argued with him about the cause of Kenny's "death." How Stan saw it, Cartman killed him plain and simple.

"It's okay," Wendy replied, secretly darting a glance at where the brown haired boy sat. He wore an expression that was familiar to her: one of absolute indifference to everything going on around him. But she could tell by the way that his shoulders drooped just a little, by the way his eyes were lifeless, that he wasn't fine with being alone.

She was going to do something about it, whether he was a killer or not.

"Where are you going?" Kyle asked suspiciously as Wendy got to her feet, taking her apple core and water bottle with her.

"I'm going to talk to Eric Cartman," she replied over her shoulder as she tossed her finished apple into the trashcan by their table.

"No, you're not," Stan told her, his voice hard. "Sit back down. Someone, especially a girl, shouldn't go near that guy!"

Wendy whipped her head around and glared at him. "I'm not some weak little Barbie, Stan. I'll be just fine!"

"Whatever," Stan stated flatly. If Wendy was going to be such a stubborn bitch about it, that was just fine with him; Cartman could drown her in the boys' washroom if that was what she wanted!

Kyle watched her go, burying his face in his hands. "Jesus fucking Christ." And that pretty much summed everything up nicely.

As Wendy neared the table, her steps faltered a little bit. She could feel everyone staring at her as she neared her target point, but she refused to back down. She wasn't afraid of anything or anyone, no matter what the media and society wanted her to believe. There was no boogeyman in her closet!

Eric looked mystified when he looked up from his French fries to see Wendy standing before him.

"Can I help you?" he asked, staring at her with such expressionless eyes that Wendy felt a chill go up her spine. But she had to be strong.

"Hi. I'm new here, and I was just wondering if I could sit with you," she said, pasting a smile onto her face.

Cartman leaned back in his seat and let out a sharp laugh. " Really, now? In case you haven't noticed, toots, no one wants to sit with me._Ever_," he emphasized, gesturing around at the sea of empty tables that surrounded him

Wendy ignored him and slowly and deliberately settled herself across from him. She hoped he wouldn't be able to hear her heart thudding in her chest.

"Ay! What exactly do you think you're doing?"

"I want to sit here."

"But I don't _want_ you to sit here."

"So, it's a free country."

Eric glowered at her and she heard him mumble something vulgar that she didn't quite catch.

"What did you say?"

"I said, you're a goddamn pesky bitch, that's what!"

"Don't call me a bitch, you sexist asshole!"

Cartman looked a little taken aback, as if he didn't think that someone as frail looking as Wendy would have the courage to fight back.

" I can do what I want," he smirked, recovering from his mild surprise. "I do believe you said it's a free country."

Wendy rolled her eyes. She was beginning to have serious doubts about why she had decided to sit with this insolent bastard. She was way off about him needing sympathy; that was for sure.

"Fine, I guess I'll be leaving you to your very interesting lunch then," she shot back, beginning to get to her feet.

"Wait. You didn't tell me your name."

Wendy froze in her half-sitting half-standing position, confused about his rapid change in behavior.

"My name's… Wendy Testaburger."

"That's a nice name."

"Oh. Well, thank—"

"You wanna know my name?"

"Um—"

"Oh, that's right. You were talking about me with Le Captain De Cowhide and Jew!attheSynagogue, so you already know it!"

Wendy was growing increasingly concerned for her safety. With his rapid mood swings, she was starting to believe why Stan and Kyle thought that he killed Kenny. Whoever Kenny was; she didn't know anything about him besides his name.

He smiled at her, apparently able to read her thoughts.

"Did those fags tell you that I killed that poor asshole Kenny?" Cartman questioned, his voice pleasant. He leaned forward in his seat, seeming eager to know more about what had been said about him.

Wendy was standing now, and she looked down at him with contempt.

"If you mean Stan and Kyle, yeah, they did. _Did_ you kill him?"

"Of course."

Cartman laughed merrily when he saw the astonished look on her face. "Relax, Wendy. I was just kidding. If I were ever gonna kill someone, they'd have to be rich. Seriouslah."

Wendy resisted the urge to sit back down. Cartman's eyes had begun to sparkle with amusement, and he made all sorts of entertaining facial expressions when he talked. Sure, he was an asshole, but he was interesting. And she was pretty sure that he didn't kill Kenny, so that was a plus.

Cartman abruptly switched moods again, and he looked at Wendy with a miserable expression on his face.

"Wendy, you think I'm insane, don't you."

"Kind of."

"I don't blame you. Y'know, I was…fat as a kid, and everyone made fun of me. So I had to be this goddamn asshole to everyone, to get them off my back."

"That must've been hard."

"Yeah, well. My mom was cool. And I had my stuffed animals to hang with."

"You played with stuffed animals?"

"Shit, did I say that out loud?"

As Wendy listened to him talk, she began to understand why he was the way he was. It brought her back to those days when she had been in tears almost every night because she didn't have the right Barbie, or her hair clips were lame.

She reached out her hand and touched him on the shoulder, cutting him off mid-sentence.

"Eric? I just wanted to tell you that I understand how you feel."

He smiled at her, glancing down at the table before looking back up at her and blinking his dark eyes.

"You can call me Cartman," he murmured almost bashfully. "Only my mom and this guy who used to be my friend call me Eric."

"Okay._Used_ to be?"

Cartman stared at her with those apathetic eyes again. "That was before…the thing with Kenny. You don't believe that I killed him, right?"

Wendy smiled. She had never thought of herself as maternal, as it was her belief that once she let thoughts of babies into her head she would be on her knees giving some arrogant jerk a blow job. But Cartman made her feel protective, and she kind of liked having someone to look out for.

"No. Those people who do just don't understand you!"

The bell to signal the end of lunch rang, and Cartman let out a heavy sigh.

"It sucks that lunch is over. So…I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Okay," Wendy agreed, smiling as the boy everyone was against walked away.

Beaming, and feeling as if her new school would manage to make her forget about the unwanted memories of her last, she walked to her next class.

Kyle watched her go from the table where they had all been sitting together earlier. He had been waiting for her to come back in tears after Cartman had told her to fuck off, but she looked happier than he had seen her all day. He couldn't comfort Wendy, and he couldn't prevent her from falling into Cartman's trap. He was useless yet again.

Kyle wondered why a suspected murderer was able to get a girl like Wendy to smile while he wasn't.

They always say that girls like the bad boys!

**A/N: Shit. I didn't "show" again! I rambled on and on and on. Crap. D: Oh well. **

**I hope the rest of the story appealed to you. I had an… **_**interesting**_** time writing it. More advice, and reviews, would be greatly appreciated. :)**


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